GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Mayor George Heartwell lost his cool tonight when a man proposing a change to the city’s firearms ordinance tried to speak a second time during a public-comment period at the end of a City Commission meeting.

Tom Lambert, a Kentwood man and member of Michigan Open Carry, Inc., got cut off by Heartwell while introducing a city code amendment because he reached a 3-minute time limit. When Lambert tried to speak later in the meeting, Heartwell prevented him in accordance with meeting rules that permit people to address the commission only once on a given topic.

“You only get one chance,” Heartwell said to Lambert, who lingered at the podium and questioned the mayor’s decision. “Did you hear me? Do I need to have you removed from the room?”

Lambert returned to his seat and Heartwell later apologized to the audience for his temper. The episode marked the feistiest moment of a Tuesday, Jan. 8, meeting that involved much more comment on two other issues: overwhelming neighborhood support for the planned Pleasant Park, and sharp criticism of Heartwell for comments related to a job evaluation of City Clerk Lauri Parks.

The ongoing debate over an antiquated city firearms ordinance attracted several speakers, some of them armed. But Heartwell and fellow commissioners expressed no interest in changing the ordinance.

Heartwell told wwmt.com earlier Tuesday that he’s okay with confusion caused by an apparent conflict between the 1960s-era city ordinance and the superseding state law.

“We regret it has come to a media circus, but your inaction has made this necessary,” said Phillip Hofmeister, Michigan Open Carry president.

Lambert distributed to commissioners a plan to amend an existing city ordinance stating that people neither can carry a loaded, operable gun nor “draw, handle or flourish” a firearm in a public place. Lambert’s amendment would repeal the prohibition on carrying firearms and re-state that that no person “shall wave or flourish any firearm in a menacing fashion” in a public place.

“The solution I bring to you tonight offers something that everyone can get behind,” Lambert said. “Not only does it eliminate parts of the city code that are unenforceable and pre-empted (by state law), my solution also clarifies and strengthens those parts of the city code which are not pre-empted.

“If the city chooses to adopt my proposal, the city will be left with more good and less bad.”

Lambert’s wife later in the meeting read from a prepared statement that Lambert was unable to complete during his time at the podium.

“To those of you here tonight that wish to see this ordeal ended, I submit to you that there is a simple and easy way to accomplish this without infringing upon the rights of a single person,” the statement reads. “Urge now your elected officials to work with me outside of commission meetings. I have been repeatedly asking them for months to do this and they have repeatedly treated me with indifference.

“There is no reason that so many of us should be fussing so much on such a simple problem, yet here we all are.”